Plunder Hands-on

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Sailing the high seas with a promising pirate title.

By Ryan Clements

At Capcom's Las Vegas media summit, most eyes were on Resident Evil 5 and Street Fighter IV -- and for good reason. Both games look great and we were excited to check them out, but there was one title that also deserved the spotlight, and that game was Plunder. Although it doesn't have the same profile as the aforementioned titles, Plunder may delight casual and RTS fans alike with very easy-to-learn, pirate-themed antics that will soon find a downloadable home on the PS3, 360 and PC.

Similar to one of our favorite downloadable games, PixelJunk Monsters, Plunder is a seemingly addictive RTS game with casual roots. Although there's potential for complex strategy and control mechanics, the premise of Plunder is very straight-forward. You control a single pirate ship and work with other ships to control a certain number of port towns. When your team controls those towns, you win. The game's default view is essentially an overhead shot of the game board, which is made up of hexagonal tiles. Each tile represents either a unit of ocean or a unit of land, but the game is designed so that you don't see the hexes so much as the overall environmental layout. Forests, towns and mountains coat the hexes to give it a more vibrant feeling than a lifeless playing field.

Lots of pirate action going on here.

You control your ship by moving a single cursor around and pointing to a destination tile, making your ship scoot over to that tile on its own. Your unit will attack automatically and carry out all its basic duties without requiring additional instruction -- you just need to tell it where to go. Besides pointing to hexes on the map, you really don't do much else directly in terms of game control, besides upgrading your ship or your towns. Everything else is strategy based and the system works very well.

Besides charming music, funny pirate names and a sharp HUD, Plunder has solid mechanics going for it. The game is -- without question -- a strategy title, but it's very simple to pick up the basics due to the easy interface. The real challenge comes from deciding what towns to capture and how to spend your resources. You see, towns produce a certain amount of any of three resources: rum, wood and gold. Rum and wood are used to upgrade your actual ship, which can be improved multiple times in three different categories: speed, armor and cannon power. If you take hold of the right towns and spend your resources wisely, you can build up a pretty impressive ship that can take on an entire fleet.

As we mentioned before, you can also spend gold to upgrade your towns. This makes them more resilient to enemy attacks. In order to take a town, you have to first deplete its health and then wait for your ship to raise a flag. But enemies can attempt to take your town once you're gone. With an upgraded defense, the town can take more of a beating until you can sail in and provide support. Ships are always deadlier when docked at a friendly town, because your health is steadily rising and the town can attack an enemy ship along with you.

She looks like a tough customer.

The multiplayer mode is clearly a big draw in Plunder. You can play games across a wide variety of modes, especially on the console versions. Split-screen multiplayer is available, as well as LAN and online play -- even a mixture of all three. Thus, there'll always be a way for you to challenge a buddy or an AI controlled player. During our many multiplayer matches, we had a blast continuously trying to keep hold of our towns while attacking our enemy's forces. As simple as the controls are, juggling ship control, resource management, upgrade paths and level layout can be a significant task.

If all this content doesn't sound like a good time, try this: you'll be able to make your own multiplayer maps with an intuitive editor and then share the maps automatically with anyone you play against. This element should definitely encourage gamers to keep coming back to the experience. Plus, at only $9.99 for the PS3 release and 800 Microsoft Points for the 360 version, it sounds like you're getting quite a deal.

We'll have more on this title from Certain Affinity in the near future, so keep your eyes out for our full review.